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California · County seat: Los Angeles · Checked 2026-08-23

Los Angeles County

The jail, the sheriff who runs it, and the judges who decide who sits inside. Every fact below comes from a named public record. Anything not yet sourced is marked still needed rather than guessed.

The Detention Center

Men's Central Jail; Twin Towers Correctional Facility; Inmate Reception Center; Century Regional Detention Facility; North County Correctional Facility; Pitchess Detention Center North, South and East

Source: LASD — Custody Services Division · checked 2026-08-23

Transparency rating

7/10Partial

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Los Angeles County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-08-23. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Since then

  • Not found in a county-published source

The Sheriff

Sheriff Robert G. Luna

Still needed
  • Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
  • Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
  • Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department — home page · checked 2026-08-23

The Judges

Largest trial court in the United States. Per the brief, only the Presiding Judge and Assistant Presiding Judge are listed. Tapia and Ocampo were elected in October 2024 for the 2025-26 term; the Judicial Branch biography page for Judge Ocampo gives his term as Assistant Presiding Judge as January 1, 2025 to September 14, 2027. Arraignments and bail are heard in criminal departments across roughly a dozen courthouse districts; the court publishes a judicial directory at http://mycourtservices.lacourt.org:90/lineupreports/judicial%20directory.pdf which could not be retrieved for this record.

Still needed
  • The county's bond schedule
  • Share of the jail population held pretrial
  • Median time from booking to first appearance

Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-23

The County Commissioners

They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.

Notes on the record

What California law requires

Los Angeles County posts a death-in-custody page.

Posts 7 of 7

The page is here. LASD's Transparency section carries 'Inmate In-Custody Deaths — Current' (https://lasd.org/transparency/icd/) and 'Previous Years' (https://lasd.org/transparency/icd-previous/). The page cites Assembly Bill 2761 effective January 1, 2023 but does not cite Penal Code 10008 by number. The table gives facility of onset and of death (MCJ, TTCF, NCCF and others), the location inside the facility (for example '2300 - Cell', 'ICU - Intensive Care Unit'), race, gender, age, date of death, custodial status recorded as Pre-Sentenced / Sentenced / Partially Sentenced, and manner and means (Natural, Suicide, Accident, or Pending). The most recent entry is 2026-025, 8/12/2026, 59-year-old Black male, sentenced, manner and means pending final autopsy.

  • The agency with custodial responsibility
  • The county where the death occurred
  • The facility — and where inside it
  • Race, gender and age
  • The date of death
  • Custodial status — awaiting arraignment, awaiting trial, or incarcerated
  • Manner and means of death

California Penal Code § 10008, enacted by AB 2761 and in force since January 2023, requires the agency with custodial responsibility to post these seven items on its own website within ten days of a death in custody, and to update them within thirty days if the facts change. California is the only state in the country with this duty. Checked 2026-08-23. This records what is published, nothing more.

The record

354 people have died in the Los Angeles County jail since 2016.

44 by suicide
193 illness or medical
354 deaths in all, 2016 onward
Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them256 of 354
Most recent death on the state's record2025-12-29

Deaths: Texas Justice Initiative, the cleaned copy of the Texas Attorney General’s custodial death reports — the state’s own public index carries no cause of death and has not been refreshed since August 2025. Population: Texas Commission on Jail Standards monthly report. Counted, not estimated.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Los Angeles County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).

How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?

Your VOTE is POWERFUL.

The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.

The sheriff is on your ballot

The county elections office runs the polling place in Los Angeles County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from the California Secretary of State and vote.gov.

Names verified 2026-08-23 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered